New Pilot Question About Multiple Monitors

[Razorwalker]

OK, I've spent HOURS going thru the forums and Googling questions about DCS World 2.0 and can not seem to find the answers I'm looking for. Please forgive me if this is not the right forum to post this.

 

I am new to the DCS series. I've had it installed for years thru Steam on my computer and never got around to trying it out. Finally one day, was just tired of all my other games and decided to give DCS a whirl. I was hooked within minutes. I immediately bought the A-10A (disabled and on a fixed income, so not a lot of $$$ to spend on games) and was having a blast with it. I then learned about DCS 2.0 and have made the switch. I got the Nevada & Combined Arms pack and have been tearing up the Nevada desert. Now, I've gotten the background laid out, here's my questions:

 

1. Can you port/move/show the instrument panels on a seperate monitor? Yes, I know about Helios, but can't find anything about if it works with 2.0 and non of my monitors are touch screen. I don not care about that feature right now, I would just like to have the instruments on a secondary monitor. If Helios works for this and works for 2.0, can someone point me in the right direction for getting it set up.

 

2. IF Helios will not work for this, is there some other program out there that will work? Again, I'm not looking for touchscreen or advanced cockpits. I know the A-10A does not have interactive switches in the cockpit. Like I said, just want to show the instruments on a secondary monitor so that my main monitor is just the HUD and nothing else.

 

Eventually, after I save up the money, I plan on building a homemade simulator that will work for DCS and others. Rudder, consoles, MFD's, the whole 9 yards. But, for now, just looking to display on a second monitor. Below are my PC specs and equipment. Again, sorry if this is not the correct place for this and thanks in advance for any/all help :)

 

Razorwalker

 

3.7 Ghz 8 Core AMD Processor

4 GB AMD RX 460 GDDR5 GPU

8 GB RAM

55" LG 4K LED (primary)

22" Staples LCD (Secondary)

X-52 Pro Flight Control System

G15 Logitech Keyboard

NIA PC Game Controller

[Sperrfeuer]

Hi Razorwalker,

i've still started with my A-10 simpit construction and got one great

alternative to Helios....called "Ikarus" (German Forum).

 

Check this:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=179525

in combination with UltraMFCD

 

I will build the complete pit with "hardware" (turn-)switches on

Arcaze boards.

 

Uwe aka Sperrfeuer / Germany

[Razorwalker]

Thank you for replying! Yes, that looks like just what I was looking for! Will give it a try and let you know how it works for me :) Thanks Again!

[BaD CrC]

No need for Helios, Ikarus or UltraMFCD if you are just looking to export the displays (whether the A10 ones or the Ka50 or Su25 or Gazelle). Just a quick edit of options.lua and a monitor config lua file to write and add.

For the analog instruments, yes you need Helios or Ikarus. I don't use Ikarus but Helios work perfectly fine on DCS 2.0.5

[Razorwalker]

Awesome, thanks for the advice. I'm actually trying out the Ikarus right now and it's pretty sweet. I was having issues with 2 monitors and DCS. Since one is a 55" and the other a 22", it was running the game half on one and half on another. So, I removed the 22" and hooked it up to my secondary computer and now I am exporting all the data to my second computer with dual monitors there and everything works smoothly. I have a SLIGHT (maybe .4 sec) lag/delay, but so far, it's nothing that interferes with anything. Once I start building a true cockpit, I'll worry about it then, but it's gonna take a quite a while to save up for that. For now though, it's all working great. Thanks for all the help :)

[Sperrfeuer]

Sounds cool. Please keep us informed about your progress.

[Razorwalker]

Will do :) I have a feeling when it comes time to build the cockpit, I'll be on here a lot seeking help and advice. :) I will admit, this is one of the better forums that I've been on. The responses have been quick and friendly. Some game/sim sites people can get rude or not even bother to answer a noob like me :) Thanks Again!

[BravoYankee4]

The combination of Ikarus and UMFCD is really nice. Yes, the displays can be exported by hacking lua's and so on, but UMFCD makes it much more convenient.

Hopefully UMFCD will have network support in the future so that you can run both Ikarus and UMFCD on a second PC.

[leostrato]

How do you configure Ikarus with 2 monitors? I have a 32" monitor running in 1920x1080 and a 19" on 1366x768.

I can´t move anything to my 19" screen.

Please help!

[JG14_Smil]

Hi.

 

Main Panel, Pos X , Pos Y, set your numbers, transmit, save profile, close/show profile.

[JG14_Smil]

Note: DCS only has to extend onto the extra monitor if you are exporting a viewport from DCS. For example, I have four monitors, DCS uses 4080 of my 6000 possible desktop pixels in my L-39 setup. The Blackshark setup needs all 6000 pixels for the ABRIS and such.

[mkiii]

It might be worth noting here too, the one major source of confusion at the start is that your screen res as set in the GUI is your overall screen area, including all monitors that you want to use, and depends on their arrangement in Windows Display settings, whereas your MonitorSetup/viewxxx.lua is dealing with individual viewports, my 5 monitor setup uses 4 for DCS. 3 main ones as one NVidia NView Surround desktop, and a smaller monitor on the end with MFDs stuck to it for instrument output. The 5th is ignored.

 

The main gist of this is that you can set your main DCS screen to be centred wherever you want, on either of your monitors just by entering the viewport size and coordinates / offsets in the above mentioned lua, whereas using the ones that are installed by default don't take into account different sized monitors.

[MajBach]

Resurrecting this old thread rather than starting a new one.

I too am brand new to this game ( I'm a retired pilot and actually went out and bought a brand new gaming PC specifically for this game), but damn if I haven't spent 2 days reading through every thread on setting up multi monitors and still was confused. Finally, a breakthrough yesterday with successfully getting two screens going. However, it wasn't what I had hoped for. I was expecting I could get one monitor to display and outside camera and one in the cockpit but of course this didn't work. Or, am I missing something?

So far, I am still getting used to the game and have only flown the included Su25. Perhaps it's my lack of understanding with modules and this included one doesn't have that capability? I tried all the options on the drop down menu under "monitors" and with the exception of "1 Screen" and "stereo", there is a blank spot where I had hoped a different viewport would be.

Am I doing something wrong? Is there someplace where I can read what some of these things mean and how to work them, i.e. "Camera + LMFCD"?

And then there is Helios and the German one...Icarus? Can't recall but I don't dare toy with them until I understand what I am already doing a bit better.

Thanks

[Opy]

To my knowledge, you cannot have an external view and an internal view at the same time.

 

You have a variety of options on how to use multiple screens, or even a single screen.

Maybe the best thing is to give one a go for a while and see if it is what you want.

 

I used to use HawgTouch. You can see gauges on the bottom of my bottom and right screens on how I had it configured for a while.

 

 

Now I use Ikarus which provides an image of the plane's front panel with gauges already setup. You just need to position any screens that the plane has (MFDs, RWR, CDU if you like).

So now my setup looks like this:

 

 

I'm not a fan of the file download method of Ikarus, but I like the product.

 

This is not a guide on how to do it, but will give you info to start with and help you understand the scope of effort you may need to go through, depending on what you want to do;

 

You can use Ikarus with using the whole front panel. You can specify just the items you want and where you want them. I think that is all you need to do for gauges.

MFDs and the like are a little more tricky. SU-25T doesn't really have one. Maybe an RWR, I forget.

 

The monitor options that you mentioned are individual files we call 'monitor setup files'. Using a quality text editor like Notepad++ you can open the files and see how they are formatted. (Off top of head, they are in \DCS World\Config\Monitorsetup\)

I think most of us that customize our screens create our own file. Often it will not appear in the Monitors list in the in game settings, so you tell the options.lua file (somewhere in %userprofile%\Saved Games\DCS\)what the file is called.

The monitor setup file allows you to export those cockpit screens to a fixed position using coordinates and dimensions. Pixel ruler software can help you work this out.

An entry like 'Left_MFCD" may work on a variety of planes. You might not want that, especially if using Ikarus panels where everything is positioned differently on different aircraft. So then you need to find the file that controls that screen for that particular aircraft, edit it to give the screen a unique name and then you can add that to your monitor setup file. Or you can have a monitor setup file for each aircraft and load it up when you need it.

Then patch day comes along and wipes out all of your work. :) So backup your stuff. I like to backup my files in the same folder structure, so I only have to copy the Mods folder into DCS World folder and it will overwrite what I want it to.

 

Scared of modding yet?

[Opy]

There are also options of exporting select items to a phone or tablet. I've only played with an expensive one that is specific to the A-10C.

 

The easiest way to avoid all of this effort (for every aircraft you use) is to win a lot of money and get into VR. Very easy to just look down at your HSI or whatever and back up to your HUD.

 

But hard to drink from a pint glass while wearing a VR headset. (So, I have not gone VR yet)

[Svsmokey]

There are also options of exporting select items to a phone or tablet. I've only played with an expensive one that is specific to the A-10C.

 

The easiest way to avoid all of this effort (for every aircraft you use) is to win a lot of money and get into VR. Very easy to just look down at your HSI or whatever and back up to your HUD.

 

But hard to drink from a pint glass while wearing a VR headset. (So, I have not gone VR yet)

 

LOL ! Best reason for non-VR I've yet heard :)

[MajBach]

Thanks for the responses, folks. I'll give it a try and get back to you. I expect I'll run into a few hurdles.

Unfortunately, thanks to Opy, all I can think about right now is Scotch!

[MajBach]

The monitor options that you mentioned are individual files we call 'monitor setup files'. Using a quality text editor like Notepad++ you can open the files and see how they are formatted. (Off top of head, they are in \DCS World\Config\Monitorsetup\)

I think most of us that customize our screens create our own file. Often it will not appear in the Monitors list in the in game settings, so you tell the options.lua file (somewhere in %userprofile%\Saved Games\DCS\)what the file is called.

 

 

Scared of modding yet?

 

Well, I got as far as this step, following the guidelines: Dummies Guide for the “MonitorSetup.lua“ buy Peter and the game couldn't find it. Then I tried directing it in the "options.lua" and it still defaulted to 1 screen. I even tried tricking the game by removing the original 1screen lua and renaming mine and it immediately stopped showing "1screen" as an option.

 

**UPDATE** Never-mind...damn semicolons. :P

Edited March 1, 2019 by MajBach

[FlyLikeKilroy]

Opy, your setup is basically the exact same thing I'm trying to get working. Can you do us all a solid and be more specific about how?

 

 

Goal: Get my DCS World 2.5.x working with three identical screens plus a touch screen (with Ikarus preferably, or HELIOS second choice) with interactive gauges and switches in a T-configuration. I intend to fly the A-10C 80% of the time and the FC3 F-15C 20% of the time. All running stand-alone installation of DCS in Windows 10.

 

Detail: I have three identical 32" flat panel displays at 2560x1440 resolution in a three-panel side-by-side array. We'll call them 3-1-2 (those are the monitor IDs as reported by Windows 10).

 

I have a fourth monitor that is a 1920x1080 touch screen in the bottom center position, directly below monitor #1. We'll call this one #4, as reported by Windows 10.

 

This forms a T-configuration, with a 7680x1440 resolution viewport across the top three.

 

I have followed directions provided in many of the other threads on this forum and that advice has gotten me this far, but I still have a little more to go.

 

Status: I have successfully got the three main monitors working with a customized 3screens.lua file, and I have been able to get Ikarus to export 90% of the A-10C's cockpit gauges to #4 (they work and interact to my touches). However, the MFCDs and RWR (and maybe some other displays and gauges I'm unaware of) don't display on #4. The OBS buttons around the MFCDs on #4 work; I can press them and their results affect the main screen cockpit.

 

Frustration: I have been able to get the left and right MFCD and RWR to show up on the three main monitors (3, 1 or 2), using X/Y coordinates to place them where I want. These floating displays 'work' in the sense that they show what's going on in the main cockpit.

 

However, I can't get them to show up on the touch screen monitor #4 itself. I've tried referencing Y values greater than 1440, etc. I've tried including #4 in the total resolution in 3screens.lua (7680x2520) but that doesn't work, either; it screws up the main displays and still doesn't display the MFCDs and RWR on #4.

 

Bottom line: How do I get the MFCD displays to show up on my touch screen #4 monitor?

[hansangb]

I create this to walk people through it. You can't use 7680X 1440 because that only covers the three monitors. You have to add in the fourth one. So the *in game* resolution has to be 7680x (1440+1080) or 7680X2520 as you noted. The walkthrough below is almost identical to your setup, except I had two smaller monitors below my three monitors.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2616874&postcount=799

[pii]

There are also options of exporting select items to a phone or tablet. I've only played with an expensive one that is specific to the A-10C.

 

The easiest way to avoid all of this effort (for every aircraft you use) is to win a lot of money and get into VR. Very easy to just look down at your HSI or whatever and back up to your HUD.

 

But hard to drink from a pint glass while wearing a VR headset. (So, I have not gone VR yet)

 

You need some VRbeergoggles

[FlyLikeKilroy]

I'll check it out, hansangb. Thanks!

[hansangb]

Come back and let us know if you have any issues.

[Mr_Burns]

Is anyone supporting UltraMFDC anymore, I found it much easier than fiddling with the lua myself, especially with 3 screens!

 

 

I know nothing about programming but is it open source or is someone able to take up the mantle to make it F/A-18C compatible?

[FlyLikeKilroy]

Come back and let us know if you have any issues.

 

 

Thanks, hansangb. That walk-through you linked to was helpful and enabled me to get my left and right MCFD's exported to my touch screen, with Ikarus running on top. It took a fair bit of trial-and-error to get them positioned and sized correctly, but that's just tedious effort, nothing complicated.

 

 

I tried getting RWR and other gauges exported but it actually crashed DCS when attempting it using the same methods. I'll experiment with those this weekend.

 

 

Thanks!